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Posted on 10/11/2001 3:35:54 PM PDT by RightOnline

"Sir, may I see your identification and permits?"

"Ma'am, I need to inspect your house. There are too many cars coming and going from here."

"Your business is closed for zoning violations. You don't meet my definition of a museum."

Sound like Germany in the 30's? It does, doesn't it? Surprise! These quotes are taken not from SS troopers, but from city zoning officials, and not from Nuremberg, but from a little town called Provo in Utah, one of the most conservative states in the Union. Once, a decade or so ago, Provo and its sister city Orem were rated by Newsweek magazine as the best place to live in the U.S. But that was a long time ago.

A succession of Mayors, theoretically Republican mayors, have increased dramatically the power of the city bureaucrats until, with the stroke of a pen, these unelected officials can throw hundreds of people out of work without so much as a fig leaf of legal justification. There are sixty-year-old businesses forced out of the city limits, apartments closed that have been rented to students at Brigham Young University for decades, residences threatened with demolition for the heinous crime of housing more than one family - even when the families are related.

What in the name of National Socialism is going on?

The examples above are just a few of the hundreds of reports ranging from fines levied for having weeds in the yard to a city ordinance prohibiting couches on the front porch. A new dance ordinance makes it illegal for a parking lot dance to be held unless uniformed security guards, video surveillance cameras, and metal detectors are installed. Provo houses upwards of 50,000 college students, who are now forced to go to church and school-sponsored dances, or go to jail.

This systematic destruction of the Bill of Rights has been going on for almost 15 years now. And it's starting to make the residents a little antsy.

Chris Jones, Curator of the American Holiday Museum (another target of the zoning Gestapo), says it reminds him very much of his two years in Communist Hungary. "I knew in 1988 that if I stood on a Budapest street corner and called Premier Kadar the Spawn of Satan, that I'd probably go to jail. But I am certain that if I stood on the corner of Center Street and University and said the same thing about Mayor Billings, I'd go to jail. Constitutional freedoms of speech, right to property and privacy don't mean anything here."

There are brand new, very stylish streetlights in Provo, paid for by the taxes of the citizenry. They all have cameras on them. Provo residents are surveilled everywhere they go. A few months ago, Provo City bought a local cable company and went into competition with AT&T and other local cable providers. City officials protested when accused of trying to go into competition with the private sector. They flatly denied any such motive. But, now those that hook up their water and electric service (also a Provo City monopoly) are asked "Do you want us to install Provo Cable service at the same time?" Wonder if AT&T gets equal time.

Lewis Billings, currently embroiled in a much tougher-than-expected re-election campaign against former Fire Chief Dave Bailey, has been the chief proponent of expansion of government during his two terms as Mayor of Provo. This year, in addition to Bailey, he faced a challenge from moderate Dennis Poulsen, a City Councilman that objected to the Mayor's complete disregard for the City Council in the proposed expansion of the Provo Airport. "The Mayor seems to think he can do whatever he wants," Poulsen said at a campaign stop.

Downtown Provo, home to the NuSkin skin-care products international headquarters, used to be a vibrant place with businesses thriving up and down the west Center Street corridor. Now almost every third building is for sale or rent. The brand-new, multi-hundred-million-dollar public library just opened to wide critical acclaim, but it sits across the street from a thrift store, which is housed in crumbling building on a tiny piece of property next to collapsing apartments. Building codes and zoning requirements are so restrictive no business can afford the investment to make the properties a good value.

The old library? It is being filled as you read this with two new floors of city bureaucrats.

A couple living in Provo's swanky upper southeast side, in a brand-new subdivision, allowed their newly-married niece and nephew to live with them while the newlyweds went to school. Someone complained (complaints are anonymous - there is no due process here, no right to face one's accuser), and the city threatened to rip out the house all the way to the framing studs unless the newlyweds vacated the premises. Zoning, the new totalitarianism.

Stan Lockhart, who sits on the City Council, and his wife Rebecca, who is a state legislator, received in the mail a letter advising them of a complaint against their property, and informing them that if they did not remedy the situation, they would face fines of $100 per day until they complied. The offence? Weeds. Not dead weeds, LIVE weeds. In a city in a desert in the middle of a drought, zoning and fire officials are fining people for allowing indigenous plants to grow.

Jones, whose museum employed over 100 people until a city zoning administrator suspended the business's license, met with city zoning officials, fire officials, building inspectors, even the Salt Lake Olympic Committee representative from the nearby Olympic Hockey Venue, Provo's only connection to the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Every one signed off on the deal. Even city councilmen, apprised of the project, gave their blessing. But then came a single bureaucrat, who, with the stroke of a pen, shuttered the museum and tossed the entire workforce into the street. "Doesn't meet the requirements to be defined as a museum" says the suspension notice. Fair enough. What IS the museum definition, then?

There isn't one. Not in the Provo City code, not in the Utah State Code. In other words, the business, whose Dark Realm Halloween exhibit opened to wide critical and public acclaim two weeks ago, doesn't meet this one person 's definition of a museum. In free countries, one person's opinion is not enough to throw hundreds of people out of work and close down a town's first major new attraction in years.

But this is not a free country. This is Provo. Bring your armband.

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